Chapter 27: The Wolf and the Flame
Vetrulfr had set his fleet upon the coasts of Connacht with a single command: loot everything of value from its river-fed towns and sea-facing villages; silver, gold, furs, silk, livestock, jewels… and of course, women.
But Vetrulfr himself did not care for such plunder.
Aboard Frostrtönn, he and the most elite of his warriors sailed upriver toward the true target of this campaign; a message written in flame to the Christian world.
The monastic stronghold of Kilmacduagh.
There, he believed, ancient tomes lay forgotten. Knowledge buried beneath prayers and dust. And as Vetrulfr had learned in the East; knowledge was power. The kind of power that outlasted gold and echoed beyond death.
And burning yet another holy site? That was just a bonus.
Frostrtönn and her eighty warriors slithered up the waterway like a serpent birthing death from its belly. They made landfall in the dead of night, and struck without mercy.
His orders were clear:
Take one personal item of value.
Burn everything else.
Vetrulfr and his men tore through the monastery like wolves through a rabbit warren. They howled. They gnashed. They slaughtered with the joyless, focused cruelty of men too disciplined to revel in death.
The monks were unarmed. The nuns, even less so. Their shrieks were swallowed by the halls, drowned beneath the sound of boots and steel.
Vetrulfr was on his third trip from the scriptorium, a sack of tomes slung over his shoulder, when he noticed something strange:
He noticed her first by the torchlight; the way her hands trembled as they tried to pry an iron bar from its cradle, frantically working at it with desperation and desperation alone. No warrior’s grip. No leverage. No chance.
She is not trying to escape, Vetrulfr realized.
She is trying to protect something.
He slowed his pace, watching with the silent curiosity of a predator circling prey that made no attempt to flee.
And then he saw the door.
Oak—thick as a ship’s keel, iron-reinforced.Far more than was needed for a convent.Built not to keep devils out… but to keep one locked within.
Something ancient stirred in him.
What do you hide from the eyes of gods, little lambs?
The woman did not notice him until he was nearly upon her. When she turned, her scream was choked and broken, yet defiant. She stood in his path like a candle before a storm.
“No! Please! God, no! Take me! Take me, I beg you! But leave that door shut! Leave her be! She has suffered enough!”
Vetrulfr heard only the tone, not the words. But the sound of begging was something he detested. He struck her down without ceremony.
She collapsed beneath the lantern’s flickering halo.
Beneath the lantern light, he saw her more clearly. Youthful. Delicate. Long, dark hair like polished mahogany. Rare hazel eyes. Hefting her limp form over one shoulder, he considered her; if not as a slave, then perhaps warmth in winter. Or at the very least, useful.
He did not hesitate to pick the sleeping beauty off the ground and toss her over his free shoulder.
But his thoughts did not linger on her for long. No, the door behind him… It consumed him as he shifted towards it once more.
You call to me; he thought.Like a siren’s song beneath the waves. I would be a fool not to answer.
He dropped the sack of tomes. Grasped the bar in one hand. It groaned under its own weight, then clattered to the tiles like the iron bones of a dragon. The clash echoed like judgment through the burning priory.
One kick. Wood cracked.
She stood there.Not cloaked. Not armed. Not afraid.
And yet he stopped as if he had stepped before a god.
What in Hel’s name… is this?
She was slight. Her face, delicate as a doll’s, but her eyes…
Eyes like burning emeralds. No fear. No tears. Only fire.
Her skin was freckled, kissed by sun, wind, and old magic. Her hair, a radiant cascade of flame touched by twilight.
Not a Christian’s daughter.
She is born of the land.
She is… old blood. Divine blood.
But in perfect Latin; each word cutting like a blade.
“You will not take her from me. She is the only kin I have left!”
The wolf within him stirred. Not with hunger.
A woman who faces death not with a prayer… but with a curse.
He found his voice. Cold. Inevitable.
“Will you take her place?”
She did not pause.Did not break.
This is not a girl. She is the final spark in a dying hearth. The last ember of gods long buried.
He laid the dark-haired girl on the bed behind her. Let her weep her farewell.
“I’m sorry Eithne… This is all I can do… Please forgive me for leaving you here alone…”
And when Róisín turned to back to Vetrulfr, she looked not like a lamb led to slaughter; but a lioness chained in silk.
“Do not burn this place while she sleeps,” she said.
“I’ll follow you. I’ll endure whatever fate you choose.”
“But betray my trust… and I will gut you in your sleep.”
Vetrulfr should have laughed. Should have raised his hand and silenced her tongue with iron.
You will make a fine queen of winter.
Róisín knew not what her captor was thinking. Nor did she expect her life would be anything but cruel going forward. But this, this was the last kindness she could do for Eithne.
After all, the only reason she had survived the winter was because Eithne had suffered on her behalf.
She owed Eithne her life, and thus, she would pay for it in kind. Eithne had begun to rouse from her slumber the moment Róisín was dragged off.
The last thing she saw was Róisín’s glassy, sorrowful eyes.And the white wolf that carried her away.